


Finding the Words

by freedomfry



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, anakin makes poor choices, old fic, rampant abuse of the letter s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:58:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1913610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomfry/pseuds/freedomfry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin frowned as he looked through the words beginning with S. "I'm not here," he said.</p>
<p>Obi-Wan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "In the dictionary? No, Anakin, you're not." </p>
<p>Anakin stuck his lower lip out. "I should be."</p>
<p>Obi-Wan reached over and ruffled Anakin's hair. "You'll have to do something pretty amazing to have it be described as 'skywalker,' I'd imagine. Until then, I'm sure we can find other words to describe you."</p>
<p>And Obi-Wan tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Words

**Author's Note:**

> Going through old LJ posts and tossing things up here. Thanks to casapazzo for the beta nine billion years ago on this one! I'm over on tumblr with the rest of you--Fireballoffry--if you want to talk Star Wars or be bombarded with Sebastian Stan gifs.

**i. special**

"And this is the Archives," Obi-Wan said to his new Padawan an hour into their tour of the Temple grounds. He looked down at where Anakin had been walking by his side and blinked when he discovered Anakin wasn't there.

Obi-Wan turned around. Anakin had stopped dead at the doorway to the Archives and was looking around the space with huge eyes. "Whoa," he whispered. Obi-Wan smiled despite himself.

"It is a bit overwhelming, isn't it?" he asked.

Anakin was still staring at the area around him. "I didn't know there was this much stuff in the whole _universe_ ," he breathed.

Obi-Wan grinned. "Well, the Jedi have been keeping track of the galaxy for twenty-five millennia. We've managed to accumulate quite a bit of, er, stuff."

Anakin hadn't blinked yet. "And I'm allowed to _look_ at it?" he asked.

"Of course," Obi-Wan said, fighting the urge to tousle Anakin's hair. "You're a Padawan, after all. You'll be spending the rest of your life studying from the Archives."

"Whoa," Anakin repeated, then walked over to one of the nearest consoles. Obi-Wan followed him, not at all surprised when Anakin's fingers flew over the keyboard like someone who'd been doing research all his life.

Obi-Wan bent forward, brow furrowed, to see what Anakin had decided to investigate first. "A dictionary?"

Anakin's eyes were glued to the screen as words scrolled past. Obi-Wan watched him soak up the information, reminded very strongly of a droid learning new programming. "Looking for anything in particular?" he finally asked.

Anakin frowned as he looked through the words beginning with S. "I'm not here," he said.

Obi-Wan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "In the dictionary? No, Anakin, you're not." 

Anakin stuck his lower lip out. "I should be."

Obi-Wan reached over and ruffled Anakin's hair. "You'll have to do something pretty amazing to have it be described as 'skywalker,' I'd imagine. Until then, I'm sure we can find other words to describe you."

Anakin grinned up at Obi-Wan. "Other S words?"

"Of course," he said. "Do you have a suggestion?"

Anakin's forehead wrinkled in concentration. "How about, um, 'special'?"

Obi-Wan smiled. Anakin had certainly been hearing that word enough in the last few days: being accepted to the Order at nine years old had required some explanation. "Possible fulfillment of prophecy" was a little overdramatic for most of the Jedi Masters, not to mention something they didn't want every youngling in the Temple to know about, so "special circumstances" had become the default excuse for Anakin's presence.

"'Special' definitely applies," he said, pulling his datapad from a pocket in his robe and beginning a new file.

Anakin's eyes lit up with pleasure, and then he turned his attention back to the console, trying to pull up star charts for the Arkanis system. 

Obi-Wan leaned over his apprentice's shoulder, certain the boy would forget about the list tomorrow. He'd keep it going, though, just in case.

**ii. sharp**

Anakin Skywalker was thirteen years old and Obi-Wan thought—and not for the first time--that he was completely outmatched dealing with him.

The boy was just so _sharp_. Quick of mind, quick of tongue, and unnervingly quick to lose his temper. He was already a force to be reckoned with holding a lightsaber and unbeatable in anything he could convince to fly. Which, Obi-Wan had learned early, wasn't necessarily limited to items that would be considered fit to be taken into the air. He'd had no idea that a 'fresher unit could be reconfigured like that.

Smart, stubborn, self-assured: Obi-Wan just couldn't stop thinking in words that began with the letter S when it came to Anakin. A list that had begun as a way to appease his apprentice had become a never-shared string of adjectives, adverbs and nouns: Obi-Wan trying to wrap his mind around what it was like to train the Chosen One.

He waited in the hallway as a laughing gaggle of Padawans spilled out of a classroom and added another word to his mental tally of descriptors: solitary. Even in a group of his peers, Anakin walked alone. 

Obi-Wan frowned. He wasn't sure that Anakin's isolation was a choice his Padawan was making or one the other apprentices were making for him. Being the best at everything wasn't exactly a fast track towards making friends, and Anakin's habit of attacking every new lesson with a single-minded ferocity was something even Obi-Wan occasionally found intimidating. 

He shrugged. A worry for another time. Anakin had spotted him, his face lighting up with a smile. "Did the Council say yes?" he asked, bouncing impatiently on his toes.

Obi-Wan refrained from answering for a moment—Anakin needed to learn patience—before finally nodding his head. "We leave for Ryloth in an hour."

Anakin whooped. "I get to fly the shuttle, right?" he said, falling into step with Obi-Wan. "You said I could if I learned Form III correctly and I did." He focused his bright blue eyes on Obi-Wan's. "You haven't forgotten?"

Obi-Wan gave Anakin a warm smile. "I haven't forgotten. I heard that you performed your latest routine flawlessly. Well done."

Anakin positively glowed at the praise. "I look forward to our next sparring match, Master."

Obi-wan bit back a laugh. Soresu was his preferred lightsaber form and Chosen One or not, he wasn't about to let a thirteen year old get the best of him. So he just let his eyes twinkle in amusement. "I do, too."

Anakin might be sharp—he was well on his way to becoming the greatest Jedi of his generation--but he still had much to learn. Obi-Wan planned on teaching him a bit about the dangers of overconfidence just as soon as they returned from their assignment.

He was probably looking forward to that lesson a little more than would be considered strictly necessary. 

**iii. sullen**

Obi-Wan was sure that his absolute worst moment as a teenager had never been as irritating as Anakin could be on a typical Tuesday.

He rapped sharply again at the door that led to Anakin's sleeping chamber. "This is your last warning," he said. "Then I'm no longer considering myself responsible for what happens to you when you're late to a meeting with Master Windu."

"I'm up," Anakin grumbled. He'd been awake for—Obi-Wan checked his chrono—thirty seconds and had somehow managed to go from sleeping to sullen faster than should be possible for anyone, even a teenager. Obi-Wan didn't know if this was some kind of unknown talent specific to the Chosen One, but thought it was possibly the least useful gift ever.

Off the top of his head he could think of at least a half-dozen Jedi who'd considered themselves eminently more qualified to teach the Chosen One than he was. In the first few years of Anakin's training Obi-Wan had used his diplomatic skills more to deflect well-meaning but superfluous advice from other Masters than to negotiate compromises with squabbling factions. In his more cynical moments, Obi-Wan thought the galactic factions--even the Trade Federation--had been easier to deal with.

Then Anakin had turned fifteen and practically overnight switched to speaking entirely in wounded tones and italics. Suddenly there seemed to be a lot fewer beings volunteering advice.

Obi-Wan couldn't believe he actually missed them. 

His list of words describing his Padawan—now stretching for pages in an encrypted file--had taken a decided turn towards the negative: sulky, sarcastic, sullen, scathing. 

Obi-Wan sighed, remembering one that wasn't on the list but probably should be: sixteen. He very much hoped that this was a phase Anakin would grow out of. A Jedi with his kind of power and an attitude like the one he was currently sporting would be unbearable to work with. 

Not to mention a combination that could make his apprentice dangerously susceptible to the dark side. Obi-Wan shuddered. Definitely not a pleasant thought.

Anakin's door finally opened. Obi-Wan looked pointedly at his chrono, then walked out of their shared rooms without a further word.

Anakin followed behind muttering to himself.

"That's not polite, Anakin," Obi-Wan said evenly as they walked through the corridors. "Or even physically possible."

The little strangled noises his apprentice made in response shouldn't have been so satisfying, but Obi-Wan couldn't remember the last time he'd been allowed to get the final word. He would take his victories where he could.

**iv. soldier**

"This is definitely the last time I rescue you."

Obi-Wan gave Anakin a wan smile from where he was lying on the slab of permacrete their captors had generously included as a bed. "You said that the last time."

"I meant it then, too," Anakin replied, rolling his eyes. "How do you manage to get yourself into these situations?"

"How do _I_ manage?" Obi-Wan began, then winced and reached up to touch the back of his head. "It's not like I planned on coming to a negotiation session and getting knocked on the head by a piece of ceiling aimed by a Jedi that had gone dark side in the last week." He frowned. "It wasn't on my calendar." He turned his head to look at Anakin, still trying to get used to seeing him without a Padawan braid. "And since you're in here in with me, I'm guessing your normally subtle version of a rescue attempt worked as well as always."

Anakin snorted. "The droids are getting smarter. That's probably bad." He didn't seem all that concerned. "We'll get out of this. We always do." He walked over to where Obi-Wan was lying, his brow furrowing with concern. "Just how much of the ceiling fell on you, anyway?"

Obi-Wan shrugged. "Most of it," he muttered. Anakin knelt down, his hand moving with a surprising gentleness over Obi-Wan's head. "We both know how hard your skull is," he murmured, "but let me see the damage." 

"I'll be fine," Obi-Wan insisted. "A few hours of meditation and I'll be as good as new."

"We might not have that," Anakin replied. "We have to make our move as soon as there's an opportunity."

Obi-Wan's lips quirked up in wry amusement. "We're locked in a cell. We don't have our lightsabers and you're looking at me like I'm going to have to be taken out of here slung over your shoulder like a sack of grain. Oh, our captors must be trembling in fear."

Anakin gave Obi-Wan one of his increasingly rare smiles. "Maybe they should watch the HoloNet more often. We're Kenobi and Skywalker. There hasn't been a trap invented we haven't managed to get out of."

"You shouldn't listen to your own press," Obi-Wan scolded, but there wasn't any heat behind it.

Strange to think that after years of sniping at each other Anakin had become such a solace to him. 

Years of battle had made them more than just Master and Padawan. Anakin was the other side of his credit chip, his brother in arms. His best friend.

Obi-Wan, feeling a little self-conscious even though no one else would ever see the file, had added "soulmate" to his list of words shortly after Anakin had been raised to Knighthood. It—and "solace"—was distinctly at odds with the other words that described Anakin after Geonosis: stoic, scarred, secretive.

Anakin was a soldier now, body and soul. The war had changed him, made him harder, more brittle. But, Obi-Wan reflected, it had changed everyone. The Senate roiled with emotions—anger, jealousy, frustration—and the Temple wasn't much better. The dark side was clouding everything and no one could come up with a way to roll it back.

Anakin was their hope, possibly their only hope, and he bore that responsibility with no outward sign of stress. Balancing the Force, defeating the dark side, was his mission and he would succeed. Obi-Wan had never known him to do anything else.

**v. stranger**

Obi-Wan stared out at the setting suns of Tatooine but his thoughts were focused Core-ward. Towards Alderaan. And Naboo. And Coruscant.

And Mustafar.

"Oh, Anakin," he whispered, his voice breaking as he clutched his beat-up datapad.

He had new words to add to his list, things he couldn't quite believe described the bright smiling boy he had met all those years ago. 

Scared. Self-deluded.

Obi-Wan swallowed hard. Stranger.

He slumped against a rock. Almost two decades of time spent with Anakin, thousands of words to describe him, and he'd never really known him at all.

He closed his eyes, willing himself not to hear Anakin's voice, ragged and broken, screaming out words of hate. Trying not to remember what it had felt like to use his lightsaber to cut down his best friend. 

Avoiding the gaping emptiness of a galaxy without Jedi.

Wanting to forget the gut-wrenching nausea of seeing Anakin kneeling before Palpatine and swearing his loyalty to an organization he'd devoted his life to destroying, becoming an S word Obi-Wan that couldn't even bring himself to think.

Without realizing it, he'd turned away from the setting suns and towards the Lars farm, reaching out to a baby whose presence in the Force was simultaneously a balm for his soul and a scorching, painful reminder of his failure.

Obi-Wan sighed, rubbed at his burning eyes, and walked back into his hut. He knelt down by the case that held Anakin's lightsaber and carefully added the datapad.

Someday he would have to explain Anakin to Luke.

He hoped he'd be able to find the words.


End file.
